Management of entities representing different types of resources (such as software applications or hardware devices) is a critical issue in a data processing system. This problem is particular acute when complex associations are established between the resources under management.
Several technologies have been proposed in the last years for organizing and structuring information (used for managing the resources) into standard models. For example, the Common Interface Model (CIM) is a specification that abstracts and describes the managed resources using an object-oriented paradigm. The CIM model is supported by a framework, which provides a uniform way for management applications to access the resources. The framework exploits providers of dynamic management services (each one acting as an intermediary between the framework and associated resources).
In the CIM model, a specific class is defined for any category of resources; each actual resource under management is represented by an instance of the corresponding class. An association is modeled by a particular class, which includes two or more references to other classes. The association is implemented by a corresponding provider; the provider enumerates all the instances of the classes involved in the association, and creates an instance of the association for any combination.
A drawback of the solution described above is that the association is defined as a completely passive object.
The structure known in the art does not provide any analysis of the resources participating in the association.
As a consequence, the burden of implementing algorithms acting on the resources of the association is completely remitted to the management applications accessing the association.